Sales Tax Dept freezes bank accounts of Indage Vintners

There seems to be no end to the troubles of Indage Vintners. CNBC-TV18 had earlier reported about financial issues and non payment of salaries that the company was grappling with. But it is now learnt that the sales tax department has seized its bank account for alleged non-payment of dues reports CNBC-TV18’s Priyal Guliani.

We have learnt from sources is that the sales tax department has frozen its bank account for alleged non-payment of dues. This has been done since September 2009. At this point of time whatever the balance funds were there were remitted to the Sales Tax Department. There are no funds in the bank account as of now and there has been no credit into the accounts since the time the seizure has been done.

Ironically, as CNBC-TV18 had reported, in the month of August, there were a mass resignations. The company had promised its employees that it will pay the dues, the nine to ten-months of salaries that were due, in installments in the month of September and October.

In September, the company had written a mail to the employees stating not to deposit their cheques as there are some issues. They stated in the mail that accounts being rendered in operational by certain statutory authorities. Similarly, in October another mail was sent to the employees stating the same very facts. CNBC-TV18 has the copy of those e-mails that were send to the employees and it clearly states it is a confidential matter. However, we do have the copy. We have also sent our queries to Indage Vintners with regard to the sales tax department seizure. But they haven’t responded to our e-mail queries. With regard to delay in the payment of employee’s salaries, they say that it is a personal matter and have refused to comment on the same.